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David Chandler has spent the last twelve years completing a book of biographical sketches on all of Africa’s early adventurers, explorers, big-game hunters, and ivory poachers, both obscure and well known. Whether they were the worst scoundrels, thieves, and liars, or those who legitimately came to make the continent better by trying to abolish the slave trade, 1,200 in all are listed—starting with Abbott, Doctor William Louis (1860–1936) and ending with Zwilling, Ernst (1904–1990). Read about the Pygmy Ota Benga, an intelligent man who was caught and traded like an animal, stuck on a ship, and placed in a cage in the New York Zoo. Learn why Henry Stanley is Donald Trump’s alter ego. Find out who were the ivory hunters, instigators of wars, creators of countries, and plain-out fortune seekers. The author says in his introduction “I’ve focused to a large extent on those who made their living “off their guns”—the ivory hunters, the hide hunters, and the many others who made their livelihood with a rifle.” Each entry has a biographical sketch as well as the subject’s hunting accomplishments and literary achievements. The inevitable controversies and contradictions in the historical record are dealt with, and all of the different versions and views are fully explored. Bibliophiles and book collectors will enjoy the attention paid to the memoirs and histories of those hunters who left a written record of their lives. Every effort has been made to track down the military service records of men like Commander David Blunt (elephant-control officer in Tanganyika) and Col. John H. Patterson (of Tsavo lion fame). Illustrated with period photos, this book has frozen in time a piece of African history and its most illustrious characters. There is no other book quite like this one.
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